not judging,” he added when she growled wordlessly. “It certainly seemed to work.”
When Alamber had finally scented a Krai in the room, a growled command and Torin’s grip on his chin had been sufficient to turn his attention back to teaching her the boards.
“Did you clear the codes?”
“I did. According to the station sysop, all our slates and yours and Ryder’s implants don’t exist.”
Torin seemed to be having a little trouble breathing. She could talk to Craig. Now if she wanted to.
“Gunny?”
“I’m okay.” When he glanced at her injured hand, she used it to smack him lightly on the back of the head. “Good job.”
Given the placement of the surveillance cameras, she waited until they were through the decompression doors and into the docking arm before she tongued her implant. If Big Bill was watching, the angle in the arm wouldn’t allow him to see her fukking jaw muscles move.
“Our codes are blocked. If you can talk, it’s safe.”
She’d been trained to use her implant and not be overheard while surrounded by the enemy. Most civilians weren’t able to subvocalize to that extent, but translating the mumble was part of the training. If Craig couldn’t talk out loud . . .
*Who the fuk is Alamber?* He sounded amused. He sounded alive.
Ressk grunted, and Torin realized she had a death grip on his shoulder.
TEN
*ALAMBER?* “Hear he’s following you with his kayt in his hand.”
*He’s di’Taykan. And young. Are you jealous?*
“No.”
*Then why the hell . . . *
“Torin.” With all the other things fighting to be said, asking her about Alamber had seemed the least weighted. In retrospect, Craig realized that might not have been the best idea he’d ever had. He’d never heard Torin sound so thrown. “I just . . . there’s just . . .” Fuk it, start over. He glanced over his shoulder into the pod, but Nadayki was still bent over the seal, muttering Taykan profanity, hair in constant movement, concentrating so hard on cracking the code he’d be unlikely to notice H’san opera let alone a little mumbling. “I knew you’d come.”
Craig actually heard her draw in a breath through the open link. Could see her straightening her shoulders and pulling her shit together because Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr didn’t do mushy.
*Are you okay?*
Loaded question. “Am now.”
*What . . . * Another breath and a clear decision to move away from the personal in the pause. *Do you think Nadayki will make the deadline?*
No surprise she remembered the kid’s name. “Yeah.”
*Damn. Okay, it’s 0653 station time. That gives us nine hours and forty-three minutes to get you to safety and blow the armory.*
“Six hours and forty-three minutes.”
*What?*
“Cho wants it open earlier.” Not the time to go into the kid’s ego cutting yet another hour off their time. When he heard Torin repeating the new information, he realized she hadn’t come alone. If she’d brought Pedro into this mess . . . the man had kids for fuksake. “Torin, who’s with you?”
*Ressk, Werst, and Binti Mashona.*
She’d called in the Marines. Big surprise. All three of them had climbed out of that hellhole of a prison with her, and all three of them would follow her right back in if she asked them to. If he had reason to be jealous of anything . . . of anyone . . .
“You have a plan?”
*We have a goal. Get you to safety and blow the armory with as little loss of life as possible.*
That was a little less detail than he’d hoped for.
*Maybe . . . * Something had clearly just occurred to her. *Vrijheid was built to survive explosions—I’ve never seen so many decompression doors on a station. Plus there’s emergency fracture lines built into the docking bay. If we blow the armory in the storage pod, between the pod and the design, the station might just blow into its component parts. I’m sure that’s the only reason Big Bill allowed it on board. Wait . . . *
Where was he going to go? Nadayki had stopped swearing and started whining. Even without knowing the language, Craig would bet that every other sentence started with: It’s not my fault. A better man might have felt sorry for the kid; as good as he was, it was obvious Nadayki was in over his head and afraid he wasn’t going to finish in the eleven hours his ego had locked him into.
*Ressk ran the numbers.* And Torin didn’t sound too happy about them. *Even at minimum potential, if we blow